Indie's 3 and a half!
Indie loves to hear stories about herself as a baby. A favorite of hers is the story of when she peed on me right after she was born.
Indie wants to be an astronaut. She plans to go to the sun. Which is ironic because nothing sets her into a quicker meltdown than when the sun is in her eyes. Even if just for a nano second.
One day Indie was obviously melancholy at lunch. I asked her what was up. Her eyes filled with tears as she declared she wanted to be a teacher. I told her of course she could be whatever she wanted to be. She replied with, 'but I want to go to outer space too!' So, we decided she would go to space and then come back home and teach about all her space adventures.
Indie loves it when I part her hair. She'll ask me to do it again and again.
Indie's into Knock-Knock jokes. This interest is fueled by Damon. He loves to do them with her and will look up new jokes to teach her. My favorite is when Indie does the 'Interrupting Cow' joke. She always waits until you're done with your bit of the joke before enthusiastically yelling 'Moo'! Which is not interrupting at all. Oh, the irony. Damon's trying hard to teach her how to interrupt, but he's losing the battle. After telling the joke Indie will always ask him hopefully if she executed it correctly. Usually she has not. It's so endearing.
Indie will silently hold up 3 fingers to strangers who pass by and just wait to be noticed. She's trying to tell them she's 3, but most people don't notice or are confused by it. The select few who do catch on and engage her 'statue like state' get an ear full about her mermaid birthday party.
I don't remember how this little bit began, but 7 is the end all number to me. I tell Damon I love him 7, or that I'm enjoying that dessert 7, or the movie was 7. You get the gist. Indie caught on and started to tell me she loved me 8. (one upping my 7) So, if you spend time with us, you'll most likely hear Indie and I telling each other we love each other 7 and 8. Indie will also answer questions like 'did you have fun at dance?' with an enthusiastic '8!'
We do a sticker chart to help teach Indie choice and responsibility. Indie helps pick out what things we want to work on and we pick out a prize to work towards. She most recently earned a Daddy Daughter Date to the movies. She was so excited and proud. Some things on her chart are to make her bed, and clean her room. One thing that's been really great for our family has been to include doing scriptures on the chart. Indie helps remind us and motivate us to get the scriptures out every night because of her sticker chart. It's been really helpful because when we are out of the habit, we don't excel at family scripture study. Indie's been amazing at helping the habit.
Indie will wake up a lot at night with leg pains. I sit on her bed and massage her legs to help her fall back asleep. I'm not really sure what else to do for (what I assume is) growing pains.
One of Indie's favorite games to play is 'Mommy & Indie' where she is Mom and I am Indie. We play this multiple times a day. Indie usually does a lot of pretend grocery shopping and tending to babies while she is Mommy. One time she said she wanted to play Mommy and Indie but that I would be the Mommy and she would be the Indie. I agreed. Life went on like normal and I forgot we were even playing until after about 10 minutes. Indie came up to me and said she just wanted to be normal again. Apparently playing pretend that I was Mom and she was Indie just wasn't as good as me really being Mom and her really being Indie.
Indie hates getting wet. She can't function until she changes clothes. Hand washing, doing her hair, drinking...one droplet and she's done.
Indie had her first day of Sunbeams. She loved it, and I stupidly cried while dropping her off. However, she was a little confused about the whole affair before church. When Indie woke up I had told her that she would get to go to her new class, sunbeams, instead of nursery. Before I got a chance to explain what to expect, Indie interjected, almost in tears, 'I don't get to live with you anymore?!' She went on to ask if she had to go live with Heavenly Father and Jesus, and said she was sad Dave died. I think her logic went something like this. Dave the cat died recently and we told Indie he was now living with Heavenly Father and Jesus. To make matters worse the only relation she has to the word sunbeam is the song 'Jesus wants me for a sunbeam' which I can only assume she now thinks Jesus wants her to come live with him like Dave did. So, basically in Indies mind, when I told her she got to go to sunbeams today she interpreted this as she was going to die like Dave the cat and go live with Jesus. No longer living with us. Poor thing! I hope she doesn't still think that's what the song. 'Jesus wants me for a sunbeam' is talking about. Puts a morbid spin on it. We tried to clear up the misconception. However, there's only so much a 3 year old can absorb in a state of despair.
Indie started preschool and loves it!
She is also taking a tap and ballet combo. We recently left our old building for a newly built studio. Indie talks about it often. She says 'I'm happy and sad at the same time!' We discuss emotions often in this home. Poor Damon. 3 girls full of raw emotion always.
Indie can't do more than an hour to two of television. If she watches too much she has a horrible time coping with anything. She becomes whinny, and grumpy and melts down at everything. I can understand. I feel physically gross if I do too much screen time myself.
Indie says so many things her own way still, it's my favorite. She calls a Hill a Hill-O. Everyday is said Eh-bee-day. She likes to tag the word everyday onto a lot of her sentences. Dad you silly, Eh-bee-day! I always do that, Eh-bee-day! She says oh instead of um. Anywhere a normal person would say the word um, just insert and enthusiastic OOH!
When she is filibustering a situation she says 'ya, but... Sooooo...' in a very soft voice. Pretending she's in the middle of a very important thought. However, she can never think of content fast enough to fill her filibuster. So she always does her classic 'ya, but...Sooooo..." and just speaks nonsense filler words. And, Then, But, Too, So, Ya...
Indie's Favorite song is 'She wouldn't do what I asked her to'. It's the only song she enjoys hearing me sing. Usually if I start singing for any reason, Indie will be very quick to tell me, 'Oh, you can Dance Mom.' Meaning I am not welcome to sing. Rude. I appreciate her diplomacy though.
Indie got pretty stuck when a cheap dollar store necklace had broken. I sat with her for a good 5-10 minutes trying to reason and calm her down. She just couldn't grasp the concept that what was done was done. We couldn't restore the necklace back to it's original togetherness. I was about to loose my patience with her semi calm hysterics. Then Indie suggested we pray to Heavenly Father and Jesus to fix her necklace. (We had recently had an FHE on prayer.) I said a prayer with her. We asked for help comforting Indie and for Indie to understand the concept of broken beyond repair. I also asked for some patience for me. It was such a beautiful moment for us to share. Until we said amen. Indie opened her eyes and looked around the room then looked to her necklace. She was slightly flabbergasted and obviously disappointing. Indie exclaimed 'where's Heavenly Father and Jesus?!' She had expected them to show up and be fixing her necklace when she opened her eyes. Thus creating more disappointment and sadness.
Indie loves to play games, and to play with friends. Typical kid. She especially enjoys and is good at the game Matching. After someone finds a match, we have to tell a short story based on that match. Indie has a wonderful imagination and I love spending that time with her. She's very engaging.
Indie treats Damon and my feet as pets. They are their own entity. She hugs them, talks to them, wrestles them, much like you would a puppy. Silly kid.
Obviously Indie's a kid and has her moments, but overall she is very obedient. She has always listened really well and been easy to reason with. There are always exceptions, but for the most part, Damon and I are blown away by her obedience.
Indie does not like to feel like she is doing something wrong. It's made teaching her new skills (like cutting on a line) hard. The first snip she takes that isn't perfectly on that line, she melts down and becomes unwilling to try. She's very hard on herself. I talked a bit more about this in this recent blog post. So, I wont go into much more detail here.
All in all, we are so impressed with the person Indie is. She is so sweet. She is extremely clever, very quick and eager to learn. She is giving. Indie will often overflow with love and give away her most loved possessions. She is creative. Indie loves to create stories and make believe. Indie loves encouragement and knowing shes done a good job and made you proud. We adore this girl!
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